GamesIndustry International has an excerpt from their in-depth interview with Blizzard's Rob Pardo where the World of Warcraft lead designer expresses skepticism about the "endangered species" of AAA single-player games. "I don't see there being a great business model for it these days. It's really sad, there's just a lot of elements out there that conspire to make those games difficult to make now," he says. "Between pirating or the ability for people to rent games, it's hard for publishers to pour millions and millions of dollars into a game and not necessarily see the return they need to make those budgets realistic."

Yeah I mean look how crappy the sales for Torchlight 2 were. And Skyrim totally cratered in the sales department too. Everyone just pirated that one or rented it...

The Witcher 2 was a flop. The Batman: Arkham games tanked hard. Xcom: Enemy Unknown will probably be a failure. Dues Ex:HR, The Fallout series, Bastion, Dragon Age: Origins. So much single player fail. How does the industry stand it?